Frank E. Rupert, owner of a well established nursery business and dairy farm in Seneca township. Ontario county, New York. has brought to the conduct of his line of work the thrifty habits, and the many years of farming experience which have been collected by generations of his family. The ancestry of the Rupert family is to be found in Germany, where they were an ancient and respected family. Members of the family emigrated to America in the early days of the colonization of this country, and branches of it may be found in all callings throughout the United States.
Philip Rupert. grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Pennsylvania, and in his young manhood migrated to New York and made his home in Ontario county, which has since that time been the homestead of the family. He married Rebecca Yates.
William P., son of Philip Rupert and Rebecca (Yates) Rupert, was born on the homestead founded by his father, in 1828, and died there in 1902. In addition to general farming he commenced the growing of fruit in 1869, and was one of the best known nurserymen of the section from that time until his death. He married Catherine Bell, a descendant of an old and honored family, who is still living on the homestead.
Frank E., son of William P. and Catherine (Bell) Rupert, was born on the old homestead in Ontario county, August 26, 1869. His education was obtained in the district schools and the high school of Geneva, and he then took a course in the Agricultural Department of Cornell University. During his spare hours and during the summer vacations he had assisted his father in his work on the farm, and he was well equipped to begin similar work for himself. He commenced the nursery business independently in 1892, and after a time added to this dairy farming, in which the has also attained a very satisfactory amount of success. He follows both lines of work along scientific lines, and makes a specialty of giving every new idea in agricultural lines a fair and impartial trial; if it shows any evidences of merit. and when its worth has been demonstrated, it is immediately introduced as a permanent factor in the work on his property. In this manner he has not alone been able to hold his own. as compared with other farmers of his section, but to outstrip them in many instances. His farm consists of one hundred and seventy-five acres, a large number of which are devoted to the nursery business. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and the Grange, and in politics he is a Republican. He and his wife are earnest members of the Seneca Presbyterian Church.
Mr. Rupert married, June 28. 1893, May, born in Marengo, Wayne county, New York, November 27, 1868, daughter of James M. Budd, who was born in 1847, served during the civil war, was appointed a Sherman orderly, and near the close of the war was appointed to the rank of major. Children: Marion, born in 1894, died in 1906; Philip D., born in 1897; Donald M., born in 1902; and William P., born in 1904.